Forbes’ article takes this further by saying “Don’t tweet. Don’t waste your time on Facebook. Email still works.” Marketers read the report and agree with this. But of course, some of us do not agree with such conclusion.

Backing up a bit, the use of social media in your overall marketing strategy is highly encouraged and in fact, known to show results for brands who execute their social media strategies properly. This has shown very good case studies and thus, encouraged most brand owners to believe that it is a solution to their sales problem.

And that’s the core of the problem.

Most of the brand owners translate this to mean that social media should ONLY be the channel where they invest in to promote their brands. This, we think, is what’s wrong in the picture. The truth is that social media is only part of your marketing mix. Not the CORE of it all.

Hence, it means that you have to invest and TEST other channels – SEO, SEM, email marketing, and of course, your own website’s conversion path to the landing pages.

Also, there is the point of knowing what your goal is on social media and if your buyers are actually there.

“To add to the conversation, if your goal is conversions, you can definitely discount Facebook/Twitter. It works best as an awareness channel. Lead generation is not its strength. But if your goal is awareness, customer loyalty, and customer service, there is no excuse not to include social media in your strategy. We’ve seen lots of brands fail in that case. In our case at Third Team Media, we change the use based on what the goal is.

A good example the recent scandal of Icon Residences. Their social media backlash is uncontrollable given that they don’t have a presence here. The community is free to voice out their negative comments WITHOUT the voice of the brand. Compare it if they actually had a presence. What would have happened?

There’s no discounting the value of social media, but telling marketers and brand owners that it’s a waste of money is BS. Might as well say that you shouldn’t use your own website too. It really depends on what you use it for.” – Fleire Castro

How about you? Will you be abandoning social media? Or improve your strategy to include other channels at the core of your marketing?